Rate My Professor Mark Parsons

Professor Mark Parsons is a Conjoint Professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medicine, at the University of Newcastle. He earned a Bachelor of Medicine from the University of Newcastle and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in Neurology and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. His career history includes Director of the Department of Neurology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Professor in Neurology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Professor of Medicine and Neurology at UNSW South Western Sydney Clinical School, and Visiting Professor at Fudan University, Shanghai. Nationally and internationally recognised as an authority in acute stroke imaging, he has translated research into clinical practice changes, leading major NHMRC-funded clinical trials such as TASTE (Tenecteplase versus Alteplase for Stroke Thrombolysis Evaluation) and ETERNAL (Extending the time window for Tenecteplase by Effective Reperfusion of peNumbrAL tissue in patients with Large Vessel Occlusion) across 50 international centres. He chairs the Australasian Stroke Trials Network, previously served as President of the Stroke Society of Australasia, and leads the INternational Stroke Perfusion Imaging Registry (INSPIRE) with over 20 centres worldwide.

Professor Parsons' research interests encompass cerebrovascular disease with a focus on acute interventional therapies like thrombolysis, cerebral blood flow and metabolism, functional brain imaging in stroke including perfusion CT and MRI, neurological rehabilitation, brain recovery, fatigue in neurological disease, digital telehealth solutions, stroke ambulances, and concussion in sport. Key publications include 'Endovascular therapy for ischemic stroke with perfusion-imaging selection' in the New England Journal of Medicine (2015), 'Thrombolysis guided by perfusion imaging up to 9 hours after onset of stroke' in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019), 'A Randomized Trial of Tenecteplase versus Alteplase for Acute Ischemic Stroke' in the New England Journal of Medicine (2012), 'Effects of alteplase beyond 3 h after stroke in the Echoplanar Imaging Thrombolytic Evaluation Trial (EPITHET)' in The Lancet Neurology (2008), and 'Persistent poststroke hyperglycemia is independently associated with infarct expansion and worse clinical outcome' in Stroke (2003). Major awards include University of Newcastle Faculty of Health Researcher of the Year (2011), University of Newcastle Alumni Medal (2012), Hunter Medical Research Institute Director’s Award for Mid-Career Research (2014), Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists Leonard Cox Award (2008), and Melbourne Health Research Team of the Year (2018). He has mentored 11 PhD completions and attracted over $35 million in research funding in the past five years, with an h-index of 72.